This is a psalm that originally spoke of the stubborn hearts and repeated rebelling of God's people, despite God's goodness and generosity. In the original psalm, God grew angry and finally allowed the people to die off to see if it would make any difference with them.

I believe my rendering of this psalm speaks to a Thean worldview, one in which we as Creatures still rebel and in which God still resists that rebellion, but in which rebellion, resistance, and resolution are imagined in a very different way.

I don't know how Cyril, the late-4th century bishop of Jerusalem, did it. After all the liturgical hoopla he went through in each Holy Week and Easter, he spent each Easter Week guiding neophytes of faith through mystagogy, the breaking open of the mysteries they had just experienced.I'm no bishop. I'm not guiding anyone through the meaning of their confirmation/baptism/communion. All I did for Holy Week and Easter was sing, and I'm totally zonked.Perhaps Bishop Cyril was able to move energetically from Easter action into Easter mystagogy because he was an artist, the kind of artist who's so passionate that he'll forsake all else for the beauty and importance of his work (work, in his case, which was done for God's sake).Perhaps Cyril believed, like I do, that liturgy (and the belief to which it gives rise) matters. Maybe, since he was the head of the church--in the city where Jesus died and rose--he felt that his responsibility was just a little bit weightier than that of others whom God had ordained to serve. And maybe his desire to bring about illumination of hearts was his manna in a wilderness of leadership.As I went through Holy Wednesday's shadows, Holy Thursday's footwashing, Good Friday's darkness, Holy Saturday's silence, and then the Vigil that beckoned forth the new light of Easter, I was struck over and over by how different Holy Week and Easter felt at St. Augustine's than it had for me elsewhere. I don't perceive the difference in terms of "better" or "worse." I perceive the difference in the degree of leadership I was granted, and in the way my leadership helped shape the prayer of others. In small ways--as a musician--I spent this Holy Week and Easter living into Bishop Cyril's holy presence as a liturgical leader. I find myself in awe (and maybe the more appropriate word here is "fear") of my God-given ability to make a difference to others, for better or worse.As I continue to be called forth to lead, how will I maintain my zeal like Bishop Cyril did? How will I engage in self-care without losing sight of the care of others?